But, it's how the team has played so sporadically over the course of this season that brings light bulbs to a flickering halt.

How can the richest, most talent-laden team in the league lose such gimme games?

Is the focus even there?

Well, Lamar Odom stars in a reality TV show with his wife for some reason or another. Artest is Artest, which says miles in mere inches. Sasha Vujacic is dating Maria Sharapova. Adam Morrison still looks awkward and lost.

Question being: are these Lakers (Kobe, notwithstanding) content now that they have their own rings, reality shows, and supermodels?

Andrew Bynum's still oversleeping and whining about calls against him. Gasol, easily a top 10 player in the NBA, earns a Best Supporting Actor nom every time he is grazed by an opponent. Derek Fisher is torrentially declining and, in doing so, has stepped up his pestilential ways.

Sunday's loss to the Magic echoed what has become fairly evident over the last month or so.

The Lakers talent can only take them so far this season. There will be a time when Bryant will call upon his newly-minted, trusty pitbull and go to war.

And the team, as a whole, will have to follow suit.

Artest etched the word "defense" in his head before the loss to Orlando. He knows his role.

Who would have thought that this late into the season, Artest would have been the one who has kept his respective cool, more so than any other Laker?

Talent, as we all know is a gift that cannot be given twice.

If you've been a recipient of the gilded touch, bare it. Expound upon it. Exploit it.

This Lakers team could easily throw out Denzel, Jack, and Dyan Cannon to get some stops at times.

Hell, maybe even Leo could help defend the pick-and-roll.

The defending champion is written in the past tense. You're no longer the champion. You've got to earn it once again. Kobe knows that. He hadn't itched that scratch in seven years.

There will come a time when this Laker team has to cowboy up and ride its wave of talent and make it coincide with something that the likes of Artest and sometimes Kobe can only sport.

Illogical competitiveness.

Ludicrous effort.

Senseless sacrifice.

Such things aren't very synonymous with the City of Angels. It's L.A. Psh. The pedestal is higher than any other in the nation.